Returned home today to find the latest BACX Balpa newsletter waiting for me and was dismayed to read that the company has formally registered with the DTI the potential need for redundancies in the future.
The previous threads regarding TP pilots, of which I am one, being unable to get into BA is something that we have gone over time and time again with no resolution. Somewhere, high in the echelons of power, somebody does not like TP pilots and nothing is going to change that unless they are forced to change their opinion or removed. And this of course is not just within our parent company, BA. Our illustrious GMFO has on numerous occasions resisted any discussion and publicly voiced his opposition to BACX piots joining Mainline seniority list in case all his pilots, but most importantly his experienced pilots, decide to bid onto shiny jets out of LHR. As has been mentioned so many times before, those of us with more than a couple of years seniority are far more interested in the quality of life that we've established where we are and not the lure of long haul or whatever. This would presumably explain why there are BAR crews flying with us on the RJ. They weren't interested in moving south either.
For those of you who are interested, the name of the current mainline Director of Flight Operations at Waterside is given in an effort to prompt us to write to him and voice our concern at the present situation and the impenetrable walls erected between the two companies. I find myself in the extremely lucky position of awaiting an RJ course, yet I have just finished my letter to this individual at BA, venting my spleen that some of my hard working colleagues (and who knows with the present farcical management; myself in a couple of years) could soon find themselves out of work. All this when BA is apparently due to start recruiting DEP's in the summer.
Partly due to start up costs, but as we all appreciate mainly due to a number of poor decisions made by our managers, BACX is haemoraging money. While we are told that it would increase the crewing costs and therefore further affect our company, surely the only way to prevent the forthcoming redundancy/recruitment crisis is to put all the BACX pilots on the Mainline seniority list and be done with it. A regional payscale for BA, perhaps exactly what BACX now pays would help to reduce these costs. In the coming weeks/months/years as we presumably start making profits again, we could address the disparity in pay though our Balpa reps, and by that I mean reps representing us all. One thing is clear, if we allow our management to make redundancies whilst there are other jobs going in another part of "the group", we will only have ourselves to blame when they roll all over us again and again in the future. And paying the redundancy for God knows how many pilots ain't going to help the balance sheet either.
I would hope that we would also have the backing of the majority of Mainline pilots in this too. We all know that there are, in BA, a small minority of utter t***s who are far more interested in protecting their own interests above those of those more unfortunate than themselves. However, you only have to read recent threads to know that we have our own fair share too! In both companies, I believe the vast majority are decent human beings and so lets fight this one together....
Last edited by Green Ham; 28th Feb 2003 at 20:48.